Case Number 05144

New York Minute

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All Rise...

New York minute? Pfft. Judge Diane Wild says this Olsen Twins movie has all the tediousness of a Boise minute.

The Charge

Twice the plot, half the entertainment.

Opening Statement

To most of us, they're the Olsen Twins, tabloid fodder and jailbait male
fantasy. To their tween fan base, Mary-Kate and Ashley are home video stars who
churn out reliably suitable entertainment for that age group, as well as books,
clothing, perfume, and accessories. New York Minute feels like just
another cog in the Olsen marketing machine, positioning them as feature film
stars—the next step in their plot for world domination.

Facts of the Case

Roxy Ryan (Mary-Kate Olsen) is a sloppy, irresponsible drummer who is cutting
school to visit the New York City set of a Simple Plan video shoot, where she
intends to slip her own band's demo CD to record executives. She has been at
odds with her twin sister Jane (Ashley Olsen—you were expecting someone
else?) since their mother's death. Jane is her opposite, a straight-laced honor
student who is going to New York to make a speech to a scholarship committee in
order to win her way to Oxford University.

A plot summary will sound ridiculous…but then so is the movie. It
takes place in one event-filled day, when anything that can go wrong does. Roxy
is pursued by a truant officer who thinks he's Dirty Harry (Eugene Levy, Best in Show). The twins find
themselves the target of a nefarious gang whose goal is to pirate CDs and DVDs.
Hitman Bennie Bang (Andy Richter, Late Night with Conan O'Brien) is after
the computer chip his accomplice had hidden in Roxy's handbag, but which was
subsequently eaten by a senator's dog. Jane's clothing is subjected to cracks,
tears, spills, and splashes, her speech is lost, she's kidnapped, and she ends
up miles from Columbia University where she's supposed to give her presentation.
There are car chases, martial arts fights, a leap into a mosh pit, a walk in the
sewers, and a makeover in a Harlem beauty and fashion shop. They meet cute boys.
The twins rediscover their bond. There's more, but I'm exhausted just thinking
about it.

The Evidence

Let's face it, TV's Full House didn't pick the Olsens out a pool of
other nine-month-old babies because of their tremendous acting ability. They
were twins, they were cute, they cried on cue.

What has changed in 17 years? Other than their own production company and
burgeoning bank account, not much. They're mostly likeable onscreen, but their
range lies somewhere between perky and giggly. Add to that a plot that isn't as
fun as it thinks it is, and you have a tedious movie that drags the audience
from one unfunny scenario to another with no real connection between them.

New York Minute wants to be a screwball comedy, along the lines of Bringing Up Baby if Katharine
Hepburn had a twin, but the Olsens are not masters of either the slapstick or
sophistication that genre requires. The script also skimps on the underpinning
drama that is supposed to make us care about the characters. Their mother's
death is the cause of their discord, but that's barely given air in this
suffocatingly active story.

The twins' dislike for each other at the beginning is so routine that it's
no more interesting or believable than their inevitable reconciliation. Of
course they don't get along: Roxy's liberal, Jane's a Republican; Roxy's
spontaneous, Jane's Dayplanner is her best friend. But of course they bond:
they're sisters. That's all we're supposed to need.

The supporting cast makes me cry. No, not because of their powerful emoting,
but because of the wasted talent. I thought Levy could read the phone book and
make it funny, but he can't quite manage it with this script. Even so, his
onscreen moments are the only real highlights in New York Minute. He
fares better than his former SCTV and Second City colleague Andrea
Martin, who has nothing to do except own the ugliest dog ever seen in film. The
dog, Reinaldo, actually acquits himself quite well.

Darrell Hammond of Saturday Night Live fame plays a straight man.
Andy Richter's portrayal of a mobster is embarrassingly bad, though it might
have been funnier if I'd realized the accent he assumes was supposed to be
Chinese before the script made it obvious.

The two boys (Riley Smith and Jared Padalecki) who serve as nominal love
interests for the girls are suitably cute but bland. Their part in the story is
presumably to make young girls swoon, since they have little to do with the
plot. They keep running into the twins despite that, as do several other
characters, making the New York of New York Minute the smallest town on
earth.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

New York Minute is not very entertaining, but it is innocuous. The PG
rating warns of "mild sensuality and thematic elements," and the
Olsens do run around in towels at one point, but there is little here to offend.
One of the funniest moments is when Cute Boy #2 asks "is it my
birthday?" on discovering the half-dressed twins in his hotel room, but men
who were counting the days until the Olsens turned 18 will not find much here to
titillate. While parents might be reluctant to sit through this one, they likely
won't mind if their tweens choose to subject themselves to it.

The video and audio quality of this release make me wish the attention was
lavished on a better movie. The transfer is nearly pristine, and the sound mix
is dynamic. Both dialogue and the musical interludes sound great in technical
terms, if not in content.

The extras should satisfy most fans. There is no commentary, which
personally I found a relief, but there's a blooper reel that has some funny
moments, two alternate endings that would have been no better or worse than the
one that was ultimately chosen, and a making-of featurette that shows the power
these then-17-year olds have as a result of their successful production
company.

Closing Statement

New York Minute tries hard to be a screwball comedy, but succeeds only
in being trying. It will appeal to its target demographic of pre-teen girls more
than anyone else, obviously, but not enough to justify a feature film release or
wasting the comedic talents of actors who deserve better.

The Verdict

All involved are guilty as charged. Even Warner is guilty of creating a
decent DVD package for a movie that so little deserves it.